 The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group 1995 PC Update Readers' Choice Awards Stan Johnstone stanj@melbpc.org.au |
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The PC Update 1995 Readers' Choice Awards were presented at the Monthly Meeting on 1 November 1995. We were very pleased to welcome interstate guests from some of our vendors, who had made special visits to attend, in addition to our local friends.
As last year, the Readers' Choice survey was designed to determine the products that you, our readers, like or desire. There are no claims of technical superiority of one product over another and so our results may vary from other surveys.
We did not ask for version numbers as we considered that users like a product for one reason or another regardless of whether they are using the latest version. Similarly in the hardware section, and taking printers as an example, selections were based on the manufacturer and not the individual model.
This year we provided the opportunity for you to vote electronically or to use hard copy sent by mail or fax. Of the responses to the survey there were only two percent were received on paper, the remainder came from the BBS and Internet, including five percent from interstate or overseas by visitors to our web page. With most of our members now using modems, electronic voting appears to have arrived.
Some categories from last year were discontinued or combined, and a few new categories were added to match the ever-changing demands that users make of their computers.
Awards for Winner or Runner Up were only made to products that received a significant proportion of the votes in each category.
Categories
Word Processor
Last year, Word for Windows and WordPerfect were very close contenders, however this year Word for Windows easily outstripped WordPerfect.
Winner: Microsoft Word for Windows
Runner Up: WordPerfect
Spreadsheet
Quite obviously software packaging is having a marked effect on the choice in many areas, and Quattro Pro, which won this section last year, finished in third place, just behind Lotus 1-2-3.
Winner: Microsoft Excel
Runner Up: Lotus 1-2-3
Database
Again marketing strategy suggested the reason for the change from Borland's Paradox as a joint winner last year, to finishing third just behind the runner up dBASE.
Winner: Microsoft Access
Runner Up: Borland dBASE
Package Suites
This category was added, following the increasing emphasis of these products on the market. As you can see, Microsoft swept the pool.
Winner: Microsoft Office
Runner Up: Microsoft Works
Communications software (BBS)
Last year the two main contenders fought it out to the line, but this year Telix led all the way, with Terminate hard on the heels of Telemate, which held second place by a short half head.
Winner: deltaComm Telix
Runner Up: White River Software Telemate.
Internet Applications
With surfing the net becoming one of the most popular pastimes, who would have doubted that Netscape would win this section. We had not thought of the Slipkit package by Melb PC as a contender, but, as a complete Internet package, it was voted Runner Up by those who have enjoyed the use of this fully configured package.
Winner: Netscape Communications Corporation Netscape
Runner Up: Melbourne PC User Group Slipkit
Fax
With the ever-increasing ability to send documents straight from your computer over the phone lines, Winfax Pro stands out so far in front that we couldn't even consider a second prize. Symantec demonstated the latest version running under Windows 95 on the presentation night.
Winner: Winfax Pro
Offline Mail Reader
The 7000 users of the Melb PCs BBS feel very strongly about "riding the wave," so much so that we could not even find a runner up in this section.
Winner: Cutting Edge Computing Blue Wave
Graphics Drawing
This software is not for the casual user, and users in this field are generally the professional and technical illustrator - and they know very definitely what they like despite the number of products on the market.
Winner: Corel CorelDRAW!
Runner Up: Autodesk AutoCAD
Graphics viewer/converter
Again, fairly specialised is its application, Graphics Workshop was the winner again this year, with no Runner Up.
Winner: Alchemy Mindworks Graphics Workshop
Games
We expected this category to generate a lot of interest. When you hear of games, the word DOOM almost always springs to mind. Surprisingly there were almost as many games named as there were entries submitted, and so there was no clear winner in this category, and no Award.
Education
CD-ROMs contain so much information and are becoming very popular, however only one product stood out - last year's winner all over again, with no other product even close behind.
Winner: Microsoft Encarta
Editor
At one time editors were used mainly by programmers, and everyone had their favourite, which they would defend against all others. This is a new category added this year, and it is interesting to see that the winner can be used as a custom editor or as a text word processor complete with spell checking, printing and many other options.
Winner: Kevin Solway Breeze
Runner Up: Microsoft MSDOS Edit
Antivirus
The initial rash of viruses spreading through networks and via disks sparked the need for this type of software. Now with the growing use of communications there is an increasing need for everyone to be constantly on the lookout for infection from all sources. It was pleasing that one of our own members and supporters, Roger Riordan stood up so well against his international opposition.
Winner: McAfee VirusScan
Runner Up: Cybec Pty Ltd Vet
File Compression
It's hard to imagine how we coped before the days of compressing files and transfer was limited to a diskette's capacity. Almost every program or file is now transferred or stored using one of the many compression methods.
Winner: PKWARE Inc PKZip
Runner Up: Nico Mak Computing Winzip
Backup
With the large hard disk sizes of today, performing backups is a problem too many of us tend to avoid - until that fateful day arrives!
Winner: H-P Colorado Backup
Runner Up: Microsoft Backup
Personal Finance
The clear winner here was Quicken, without any real competition. So, to those who look after their money, there appears to be only one that appeals.
Winner: Reckon Software Quicken
File and disk manager
Last year all utilities were grouped together, but there are many who work all the time using a file manager for transferring files and executing programs. The old familiar ones are still around.
Winner: Symantec XTree Gold
Runner Up: Symantec Norton Commander
Network
Linking PCs together in the small business or home environment is rapidly providing users with the ability to transfer data quickly between machines without the need to copy through intermediate media.
Winner: Microsoft Windows for Workgroups
Runner Up: Lantastic
Programming language
What happened to Basic, Fortran, Cobol and the like? Now that the graphical interface has become the standard form for software, we have the next generation of programming languages, with Visual Basic mow ahead of Turbo Pascal.
Winner: Borland C++
Runner Up: Microsoft Visual Basic
Software vendor support
Sorry - we could not find one who came up to your requirements!
Personal printer
Hewlett-Packard stole the show completely here. Last year we separated laser, ink-jet and dot-matrix machines. Now, because of the large number of types and models available, we have made no attempt to distinguish between them except by manufacturer.
Winner: Hewlett-Packard
Runner Up: Canon
Colour printer
The same story as for the personal printers.
Winner: Hewlett-Packard
Runner Up: Canon
Modem
There is an increasing number of new modems appearing on the market. Like last year, the two market leaders stood out from the others with little between them.
Winner: Netcomm
Runner Up: Maestro
Sound card
With its very popular Sound Blaster series, Creative Labs again won this category by such a staggering amount that no Runner Up award was considered appropriate.
Winner: Creative Labs, Inc Sound Blaster
CD-ROM
We remarked last year that these drives are becoming almost standard equipment on PCs. With more software becoming available on this medium, it must be considered one of the most significant developments to small computers over the past few years. Last year's results were repeated.
Winner: Panasonic
Runner Up: NEC
Best computer bookshop
Again no change from last year although some new kids on the block are making their presence felt.
Winner: McGills Newsagency
Runner Up: Technical Book and Magazine Co
Best commercial computer magazine
Last year we were embarrassed by the number of votes for PC Update, so this year we stressed the word "commercial." The APC Publications people again scooped the pool with their very popular magazines.
Winner: ACP Australian Personal Computer
Runner Up: ACP PC User
Best vendor for support
Again you could not convince us that there was any one company that stood out as a winner, so no award was made!
PC Update contributors
Despite opposition from the Editor, we decided this was an opportunity for you to show your appreciation of the people who make PC Update work. The following awards were made the contributors to PC Update by the readers who enjoy their work.
Best regular columnist
Was there ever any question who would win this award? His articles are loved and reprinted by many other User Group magazines and newsletters throughout the world.
Winner: Ron Wilby
Best feature writer
Was there ever any question to whom this award should go to? He would also win by the sheer volume of material he writes!
Winner: Ash Nallawalla
Best Reviewer
Forgetting the horrible background to his photo published in PC Update, Bob Burt's articles are always well written and fully illustrated with plenty of screen shots. Yet another easy winner.
Winner: Bob Burt
Best SIG reporter
Our SIG meetings are where members get down to the nitty gritty; Freeware and Shareware is one of our longest running groups, and one which has always been fully reported by this year's winner.
Winner: Russell Langley
Favourite advertiser
We added this for a bit of fun despite the Editor's protests! We hope all our advertisers profit from the exposure we give them, but our thinking was to see which advertiser caught readers' eyes to layout or whatever. We might add that although TECS won this award, there were quite a few others snapping close on its heels.
Winner: TECS
The last words
It was very interesting to read the various comments that were added here and there - the one we liked best was Best Software Support - "My Dad!"
Reprinted from the December 1995 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia
